Thursdays
by Amythe3lder
Summary: Part 2: In which Molly gives Sherlock some advice. Takes place directly after Undertow, and won't make much sense if you haven't read that. Rhythm is set a couple of weeks later. For my friend Leythra, who needed fluff. Because I can't work the html, strikethroughs are indicated by underlines.


All the blue light reflections that color my mind when I sleep  
>And the lovesick rejections that accompany the company I keep<br>All the razor perceptions that cut just a little too deep  
>Hey I can bleed as well as anyone, but I need someone to help me sleep<br>"Mrs. Potter's Lullaby"-Counting Crows

* * *

><p>Molly had been Sherlock's friend for longer than he'd been hers. Before he knew he had friends, before he could recognize that not everyone who helped him wanted something in return, the unassuming woman had been looking after him. He had used her callously, and she had let him. He had believed this was out of some ill-advised love for him and he'd been right- after a fashion- but he'd misread her affection, and he was starting to consider that maybe it hadn't been unwise of her to care about him after all.<p>

He was working towards putting something real in place of all that false bravado.

During one of their Thursday night cuddles counseling sessions _visits _last year, while he recovered from a gunshot wound that he had nearly believed he'd deserved, Molly caught him with his guard down and had asked him why he was so deeply suspicious of anyone who sought his company. Exhausted from nightmares and groggy from the pain medicine he'd slurred, "Who'd wanna be 'round me?"

"Wouldn't you? If you were someone different, would you be friends with who you are now?"

"Nooonono," he'd mumbled emphatically.

"You might see about fixing that."

"...When'd you turn into a ther'pist? Molly," he'd shaken his head a bit and tried to focus on her, then said slowly, "I am an arsehole."

"Well yes," she'd agreed, "but everybody in your life is still here because we know that's not all you are."

"Right. I'm a _genius _arsehole," he'd declared proudly, and she'd succumbed to a fit of giggles.

When she could talk again, she had suggested that while he didn't need to change who he was, perhaps he could also cultivate his better qualities. "Be someone you wouldn't cringe to see John spending time with."

"John's got terrible taste in friends. Still better than his taste in wives, though."

* * *

><p>Molly was at his door, and there was something different about her. A sadness that she'd always carried had been lifted away. Sherlock had dismissed her tension as intrinsic because so far as he could recall, he'd never seen her without it. Without preamble, he said, "You've seen Mycroft today, he mentioned that he had to go see a body when he left here this morning. You told him," he concluded, "and it went well? Yes. It must have, that's why you look so…" he gestured at her.<p>

"Happy, Sherlock, she looks happy," John prompted from the kitchen doorway. He sent her a congratulatory smile and went back to unpacking the miraculously intact glasses.

"I think I'm supposed to ask you about your intentions regarding my brother. Or ask him what he means to do with my pathologist," the detective mused with mock concern.

Molly said, "I feel like I'm all made up of sunlight."

"You look a bit like it, too," he admitted.

His friend dropped her voice, "Your turn next, Sherlock." They excused themselves to John and she ushered the detective out into the hallway. "What are we going to do about Thursdays? If it comes to it, I honestly don't think Mycroft would mind once I explain; he must know about your troubles. So, I'm still available if you need me, but I think you'd be better off moving up your timetable with John." At his scandalized glare, she clarified, "I'm not saying you ought to shag him yet, just see if he'll hold you. He already knows that we sleep over sometimes. He just doesn't fully understand why."

"He's only just moved in this morning. There's making progress and then there's rushing headlong into doom," he looked uncomfortable, "and I haven't got the faintest idea how to ask him for that."

"How would you get him to do anything else? Remember how you manipulated _me _into sharing a bed with you?"

"Well, there weren't any linens in John's old room that first night, and I made false and disparaging remarks about the couch. I took away the other options," he realized.

"Maybe after a few days, when you know he'll be gone long enough, get rid of his bed."

"I could tell him it's for science. He won't question it. Much."


End file.
